For my first post as an Atlantic correspondent I am returning to the country, Ivory Coast, where I first committed journalism, at the start of the 1980s.

Why pick such an obscure topic, an African country that is neither hugely oil rich, nor home to a besieged white minority, nor the imagined base of Islamic terrorists?

Yes, Ivory Coast has been in the news steadily in recent weeks, the scene of a dangerous showdown between a leader who was defeated in a democratic election and yet continues to cling defiantly to power and the man who beat him. But there is a bigger point to be made, of how African countries relegated to the margins of our (often poorly formulated) foreign policy toward the continent can be remarkably important.

The last time I wrote about Ivory Coast it was as a frustrated observer from northeast Asia; wintry Seoul, to be precise, a place that felt about as far away from West Africa as one could be. It was 1999 and a coup d'etat, the first salvo in what would eventually become a ruinous civil war, had just occurred in the country. From faraway, I was struggling to drum up more interest in the story, which minus the "great" was being treated as in V.S. Naipaul's apt phrase about smallish African countries, like "one of the great sighs of the world."

My frustrations, though, went back even further. I had moved to the country in December 1979, when Ivory Coast was still well ahead of China in per capita wealth, its main city, Abidjan, reflected both a polish and ambition seldom associated with the continent, and Cote d'Ivoire, as its leaders insist on calling the country, was the sub-region's surest engine, drawing economic migrants from far and wide.

That country, a place with a seeming bright future, began to come unraveled before my eyes after I returned there for The New York Times after a nearly decade-long absence, in 1994.

Konan Bédié, the successor of the country's founding father, Félix Houphouet-Boigny, rigged an election, began ruling through unusually blatant patronage and graft, and most alarming of all, to bolster his flagging legitimacy, he began resorting to anti-Muslim politics aimed against his most serious political rival, Alassane Ouattara.

Ivory Coast began to fall apart in slow motion. Its trajectory was entirely predictable, like the car wreck one foresees but cannot avoid in a dream, and yet the international community scarcely raised a pinkie. No high level envoys were sent to ward off the crisis or to mediate, and no multilateral diplomatic initiative was launched. The result was that the one country that for years had served as a plausible model of prosperous modernity in West Africa was utterly destroyed.

It must be said in fairness, but also because things are so different today, that Ivory Coast's neighbors were equally useless in the country's moment of maximal need. None invested themselves in insisting on fair elections or condemning overt tribalism in national politics.

The loss to West Africa has been immeasurable. Not just in the billions of dollars of wealth destroyed and in the growth foregone (economists say Ivory Coast might have been as wealthy as Thailand today had its politics not come unraveled in the 1990s), but a country which had long been a bastion of stability in the region increasingly became a staging point for mischief in neighboring countries. In other words, the deepening mess in Ivory Coast fueled war, drug trafficking and intrigue in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

In recounting this history, which is little known to Americans and may seem impenetrable to many even now, one is reminded of the most famous (albeit largely misunderstood) African crisis of recent times: Rwanda.

Although obviously different in many important details, in their broad contours, the catastrophes of Rwanda and Ivory Coast (and indeed many African trouble spots) share a strikingly similar life cycle: a long brewing crisis, the relative disinterest of the international community, an explosive phase of genocide in Rwanda and civil war in Ivory Coast, a half-hearted, salve-like diplomacy that fails to address real causes, and finally contagion.

I've spoken already of how the contagion worked in Ivory Coast. The failure to seriously address Rwanda's troubles led to the death of 5 million people in neighboring Congo, which became the stage of Rwanda's repeated post-genocide military adventures. Although it constantly gets lost, the obvious point here is that more serious efforts at preventive diplomacy and political engagement early in crises like these would be far less costly in both lives and in economic destruction.

With Ivory Coast in the news again, it is a relief to note how much has changed. Under close international observance, the country finally held long-postponed elections in late-November. When the defeated incumbent who refuses to quit power, Laurent Gbagbo, tried to refute the results, his claims were swiftly and convincingly refuted by the United Nations. (According to a joke going around the region, "someone forgot to tell Gbagbo that you're supposed to rig an election before the vote.")

This has led to an impressive cascade of calls from the international community, even including nominally non-political actors like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, effectively endorsing the election of Mr. Ouattara and calling on Gbagbo to step down.

The best one can say about the United States political relationship with the continent is that it has been an inconsistent supporter of democracy. During the Clinton years, Washington was locked in a strange swoon over a number of authoritarian states -- Ethiopia, Eritrea, Uganda, Rwanda, and even briefly the Congo, under the unspeakable late dictator, Laurent Kabila -- and the effects have not altogether dissipated. And yet as Mr. Gbagbo tried to stare down the international community, there was Barack Obama issuing a strong statement, warning him that he would be choosing a "path to isolation" by clinging to power.

Even more remarkable has been the African response, suggesting real progress in terms of continental governance.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union both endorsed the election's United Nations-certified result, and when Mr. Gbagbo still clung to office, ECOWAS, led by democratic Ghana, and by Nigeria, suspended Ivory Coast's membership in the body. Nigeria is Africa's most populous country and is due to hold critical elections of its own early next year.

Suddenly, one feels, we are a very far from the time honored mealy-mouthed African response to political outrages on the continent. The most telling recent comparison here, of course, is the softly, softly response to Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, who has presided over his country's economic destruction, stolen an election and refused to abide by painstakingly negotiated political settlements - all while incurring little wrath or even vocal disapproval from his neighbors.

A tentative hopefulness feels justified here. Tentative because this is far from over. Tentative also because one knows how short the world's attention span tends to be toward African countries, especially ones that don't fulfill any of the criteria I set forth at the beginning of this post.

An interesting footnote here is a notably quiet China, which has famously claimed non-interference as the basis for its foreign policy; a point it drives home in its relations with African countries. In the real world, where situations like that of Ivory Coast proliferate, with a stance like this, can China be the friend of African peoples and not just of governments?

Increasingly, with China's profile fast rising on the continent, the answer, like the open question of how the United States engages the continent, will make an enormous difference in the lives of millions.

Most Popular

Should you drink more coffee? Should you take melatonin? Can you train yourself to need less sleep? A physician’s guide to sleep in a stressful age.

During residency, Iworked hospital shifts that could last 36 hours, without sleep, often without breaks of more than a few minutes. Even writing this now, it sounds to me like I’m bragging or laying claim to some fortitude of character. I can’t think of another type of self-injury that might be similarly lauded, except maybe binge drinking. Technically the shifts were 30 hours, the mandatory limit imposed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, but we stayed longer because people kept getting sick. Being a doctor is supposed to be about putting other people’s needs before your own. Our job was to power through.

The shifts usually felt shorter than they were, because they were so hectic. There was always a new patient in the emergency room who needed to be admitted, or a staff member on the eighth floor (which was full of late-stage terminally ill people) who needed me to fill out a death certificate. Sleep deprivation manifested as bouts of anger and despair mixed in with some euphoria, along with other sensations I’ve not had before or since. I remember once sitting with the family of a patient in critical condition, discussing an advance directive—the terms defining what the patient would want done were his heart to stop, which seemed likely to happen at any minute. Would he want to have chest compressions, electrical shocks, a breathing tube? In the middle of this, I had to look straight down at the chart in my lap, because I was laughing. This was the least funny scenario possible. I was experiencing a physical reaction unrelated to anything I knew to be happening in my mind. There is a type of seizure, called a gelastic seizure, during which the seizing person appears to be laughing—but I don’t think that was it. I think it was plain old delirium. It was mortifying, though no one seemed to notice.

His paranoid style paved the road for Trumpism. Now he fears what’s been unleashed.

Glenn Beck looks like the dad in a Disney movie. He’s earnest, geeky, pink, and slightly bulbous. His idea of salty language is bullcrap.

The atmosphere at Beck’s Mercury Studios, outside Dallas, is similarly soothing, provided you ignore the references to genocide and civilizational collapse. In October, when most commentators considered a Donald Trump presidency a remote possibility, I followed audience members onto the set of The Glenn Beck Program, which airs on Beck’s website, theblaze.com. On the way, we passed through a life-size replica of the Oval Office as it might look if inhabited by a President Beck, complete with a portrait of Ronald Reagan and a large Norman Rockwell print of a Boy Scout.

Why the ingrained expectation that women should desire to become parents is unhealthy

In 2008, Nebraska decriminalized child abandonment. The move was part of a "safe haven" law designed to address increased rates of infanticide in the state. Like other safe-haven laws, parents in Nebraska who felt unprepared to care for their babies could drop them off in a designated location without fear of arrest and prosecution. But legislators made a major logistical error: They failed to implement an age limitation for dropped-off children.

Within just weeks of the law passing, parents started dropping off their kids. But here's the rub: None of them were infants. A couple of months in, 36 children had been left in state hospitals and police stations. Twenty-two of the children were over 13 years old. A 51-year-old grandmother dropped off a 12-year-old boy. One father dropped off his entire family -- nine children from ages one to 17. Others drove from neighboring states to drop off their children once they heard that they could abandon them without repercussion.

Since the end of World War II, the most crucial underpinning of freedom in the world has been the vigor of the advanced liberal democracies and the alliances that bound them together. Through the Cold War, the key multilateral anchors were NATO, the expanding European Union, and the U.S.-Japan security alliance. With the end of the Cold War and the expansion of NATO and the EU to virtually all of Central and Eastern Europe, liberal democracy seemed ascendant and secure as never before in history.

Under the shrewd and relentless assault of a resurgent Russian authoritarian state, all of this has come under strain with a speed and scope that few in the West have fully comprehended, and that puts the future of liberal democracy in the world squarely where Vladimir Putin wants it: in doubt and on the defensive.

The same part of the brain that allows us to step into the shoes of others also helps us restrain ourselves.

You’ve likely seen the video before: a stream of kids, confronted with a single, alluring marshmallow. If they can resist eating it for 15 minutes, they’ll get two. Some do. Others cave almost immediately.

This “Marshmallow Test,” first conducted in the 1960s, perfectly illustrates the ongoing war between impulsivity and self-control. The kids have to tamp down their immediate desires and focus on long-term goals—an ability that correlates with their later health, wealth, and academic success, and that is supposedly controlled by the front part of the brain. But a new study by Alexander Soutschek at the University of Zurich suggests that self-control is also influenced by another brain region—and one that casts this ability in a different light.

“Well, you’re just special. You’re American,” remarked my colleague, smirking from across the coffee table. My other Finnish coworkers, from the school in Helsinki where I teach, nodded in agreement. They had just finished critiquing one of my habits, and they could see that I was on the defensive.

I threw my hands up and snapped, “You’re accusing me of being too friendly? Is that really such a bad thing?”

“Well, when I greet a colleague, I keep track,” she retorted, “so I don’t greet them again during the day!” Another chimed in, “That’s the same for me, too!”

Unbelievable, I thought. According to them, I’m too generous with my hellos.

When I told them I would do my best to greet them just once every day, they told me not to change my ways. They said they understood me. But the thing is, now that I’ve viewed myself from their perspective, I’m not sure I want to remain the same. Change isn’t a bad thing. And since moving to Finland two years ago, I’ve kicked a few bad American habits.

Modern slot machines develop an unbreakable hold on many players—some of whom wind up losing their jobs, their families, and even, as in the case of Scott Stevens, their lives.

On the morning of Monday, August 13, 2012, Scott Stevens loaded a brown hunting bag into his Jeep Grand Cherokee, then went to the master bedroom, where he hugged Stacy, his wife of 23 years. “I love you,” he told her.

Stacy thought that her husband was off to a job interview followed by an appointment with his therapist. Instead, he drove the 22 miles from their home in Steubenville, Ohio, to the Mountaineer Casino, just outside New Cumberland, West Virginia. He used the casino ATM to check his bank-account balance: $13,400. He walked across the casino floor to his favorite slot machine in the high-limit area: Triple Stars, a three-reel game that cost $10 a spin. Maybe this time it would pay out enough to save him.

A report will be shared with lawmakers before Trump’s inauguration, a top advisor said Friday.

Updated at 2:20 p.m.

President Obama asked intelligence officials to perform a “full review” of election-related hacking this week, and plans will share a report of its findings with lawmakers before he leaves office on January 20, 2017.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz said Friday that the investigation will reach all the way back to 2008, and will examine patterns of “malicious cyber-activity timed to election cycles.” He emphasized that the White House is not questioning the results of the November election.

Asked whether a sweeping investigation could be completed in the time left in Obama’s final term—just six weeks—Schultz replied that intelligence agencies will work quickly, because the preparing the report is “a major priority for the president of the United States.”

A professor of cognitive science argues that the world is nothing like the one we experience through our senses.

As we go about our daily lives, we tend to assume that our perceptions—sights, sounds, textures, tastes—are an accurate portrayal of the real world. Sure, when we stop and think about it—or when we find ourselves fooled by a perceptual illusion—we realize with a jolt that what we perceive is never the world directly, but rather our brain’s best guess at what that world is like, a kind of internal simulation of an external reality. Still, we bank on the fact that our simulation is a reasonably decent one. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t evolution have weeded us out by now? The true reality might be forever beyond our reach, but surely our senses give us at least an inkling of what it’s really like.